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The  Passing  of  Plato 

By 
Oliver  Peebles  Jenkins 


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ADDRESS  AT  THE  SIXTH  ANNUAL  COMMENCEMENT 

LELAND  STANFORD  JUNIOR  UNIVERSITY 

MAY  26,  1897 


THE   PASSING  OF  PLATO 

Oliver  P.  Jenkins 
Professor  of  Physiology,  Leland  Stanford  Junior  University 


PUBLISHED   BY   THE   UNIVEESITY 

STANFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
1897 


ADDRESS  AT  THE  SIXTH   ANNUAL   COMMENCEMENT 

LELAND   STANFORD   JUNIOR   UNIVERSITY 

MAY    26,    i8q7 


THE   PASSING   OF   PLATO 

Oliver  P.  Jenkins 
Professor  of  Physiology,  Leland  Stanford  Junior   University 


PUBLISHED    BY    THE   UNIVERSITY 

STANFORD    UNIVERSITY   PRESS 
1897 


THE   PASSING   OF   PLATO. 

Oliver  P.  Jenkins. 


The  stupendous  changes  that  have  been  wrought  in  the 
material  life  of  the  civilized  races  in  a  short  period  of  time 
by  the  progress   of   modern   science   have  been   generally 
recognized.     We  have  to  make  only  a  casual  investigation 
into  the  history  of  the  production  of  the  things  that  would 
come  under  our  view  at  our  first  turn,  to  find  complete  revo- 
tolution  in  production,  manvifacture,  and  distribution.     We 
^find  further  that  it  is  not  in  each  a  single  change,  but  revo- 
>-rlution  on  revolution  the  most  radical.     For  example,  in 
^  less  than  twenty-five  years  the  immense  and  complicated 
^  business  of  transit  in  our  cities  has  passed  from  omnibus  to 
=  horse  car,  from  horse  car  to  cable  system,  from   the  cable 
S:  system  to  the  electric  car  system,  with  special  variations  in 
'^  the    way    of   elevated   railroads    and   pneumatic    railways. 
Methods  of  lighting,  heating,  production  and  transference 
of  power  for  motors,  have  passed  through  equal  strides  of 
change  and  improvement.     Everything  connected  with  the 
immense  business  of  transportation,  from  the  great  under- 
taking  of   building    a   bridge  or   a  steamship  down  to  the 
sealing   of     a    freight    car   or    the    excavation    of    a    yard 
of  rock,  has  in  a  like  period  passed  through  radical  revolu- 
tions   that    are    bewildering  in   their  rapidity   and   in  the 
greatness  of  the  interests  involved. 

This  change  and  this  advance  have  appeared  not  alone 
in  these  large  and  conspicuous  phenomena  of  activity,  but 
in  the  countless  other  lines  of  human  industry  change  has 

29896^' 


4  The  ]\i^.^iny  of  Plato. 

followed  change.  Improvement  and  advance  on  what  has 
been  just  past  have  been  the  constant  movement  of  the 
time.  On  account  of  the  complex  relations  that  exist  in  a 
community,  a  single  new  invention  may  greatly  affect  many 
occupations  other  than  the  one  in  which  the  invention  is 
used.  Consequently,  as  matters  are  now  going,  it  is  beyond 
mental  grasp  to  comprehend  the  breadth  and  depth  of  these 
changes.  As  the  result  of  them,  hosts  of  old  occupations 
have  been  destroyed,  innumerable  ones  have  been  com- 
pletely and  radically  revolutionized,  and  hosts  of  new  ones 
have  been  created.  This  has  made  a  wholesale  destruction 
of  old  relations  and  a  wholesale  creation  of  new  ones.  And 
with  all  this  have  come  and  still  must  come  the  most  severe 
strains  on  the  structure  of  the  community  in  the  readjust- 
ment of  these  relations. 

This  condition  of  the  present  time  ai)pears  more  striking 
when  we  consider  that  more  and  greater  changes  have 
occurred  in  the  material  life  of  the  community,  and  in  the 
adjustments  these  have  brought  with  them,  in  the  last  ten 
years  than  have  occurred  in  any  thousand  )'ears  previous 
to  the  nineteenth  century. 

It  is  agreed  on  all  hands  that  all  these  marvels  of  change 
and  improvement  in  the  setting  of  our  material  life  have 
been  the  result  of  the  application  of  the  scientific  method 
to  the  study  of  nature.  Even  those  who  suspect  science 
and  decry  the  scientific  method  and  warn  the  elect  against 
both,  acknowledge  the  service  that  science  has  done  for 
what  they  style  the  material  man.  They,  as  promptly  as 
ntliers,  demand  of  the  hotels,  railroads,  architects,  and  pub- 
lishing houses  that  they  take  advantage  in  every  way  of  the 
latest  that  science  has  to  offer.  We  have  no  longer,  then, 
to  contend  for  what  science  has  accomplished  for  this  side 
of  human  life. 

These  marvels  are  of  itrofound  interest  and  with  an  out- 
come impossible  to  foresee;  init  interesting  and  significant  as 
these  results  of  science  are,  it  is  still  another  ]>hase  of  the 
effect  of  ilic  modern  scientific  method   that  shall  detain  us 


The  Passing  of  Plato.  5 

at  this  moment.  Too  large  it  is  and  too  comprehensive — 
too  far-reaching  to  be  brought  to  more  than  mere  notice  in 
so  short  a  time.  It  is  the  effect  of  science  on  the  thought 
of  the  time,  and  more  specifically  its  effect  on  higher  educa- 
tion and  the  university. 

The  expression  "  the  thought  of  the  time,"  as  generally 
made  use  of,  is  not  accurately  descriptive.  Strictly  speak- 
ing, the  thought  of  any  time  has  its  manifold  expression  in 
all  that  the  people  of  the  time  do  or  produce,  whether  it  be 
in  the  form  of  manufacture,  works  of  art,  customs,  institu- 
tions, or  the  varied  forms  of  written  expression  that  have 
come  from  them.  But  the  expression  is  more  usually  lim- 
ited to  those  more  formal  products  of  mental  activity  rep- 
resented by  its  literature,  systems  of  philosophy,  and  for- 
mal sciences. 

The  enumeration  of  the  triumphs  of  science  frequently 
includes  only  the  list  of  remarkable  appliances  for  better- 
ing our  material  life.  But  the  scientific  method  has  also 
begun  to  affect  most  profoundly  the  other  side  of  human 
life.  It  is  revolutionizing  the  methods  of  thought  in  all 
phases  of  mental  activity. 

The  progress  here  has  been  more  slow,  uncertain,  and 
unsuccessful.  Men  are  more  ready  to  change  the  appli- 
ances of  a  new  home,  the  methods  of  travel  and  communi- 
cation, and  even  their  methods  of  thinking  in  business 
relations  and  active  life,  than  they  are  to  change  in  all 
those  matters  not  immediately  connected  with  material  life 
in  which  there  is  a  fierce  and  definite  competition.  But  a 
brief  examination  will  show  the  profound  influence  of  this 
method. 

Turning  back  to  the  most  prosperous  age  of  Greece,  we 
find  the  Greeks  sympathetic  lovers  of  nature,  as  their  life 
and  art  have  shown.  They  were  students,  too,  of  nature, 
groping  not  wholly  blindly,  as  demonstrated  by  many  of 
their  conceptions  that  have  passed  down  to  us.  There  arose 
among  them  Socrates  and  Plato — the  teacher,  and  his  liter- 
ary executor  and  expounder.     With  the  purest  and  best  of 


6  The  Passing  of  Plato. 

motives  they  unconsciously  did  the  race  a  disservice  that 
became  a  bar  to  progress  for  the  ages  that  followed.  They 
sought  fundamental  truths  with  the  commendable  purpose 
of  settling  all  questions  of  ethics  for  all  time. 

If  the  universe  is  the  product  of  fundamental  principles, 
the  long  ages  of  succession  of  events,  with  their  differenti- 
ation, synthesis,  and  evolution,  have  complicated  matters 
immensely  and  buried  fundamental  principles  so  deep  that 
it  is  impossible  to  discover  them  in  the  external  universe. 
Consequently,  not  quickly  finding  their  required  principles 
and  definitions  in  this  external  universe  of  nature,  and 
without  understanding  why  the  universe  could  not  furnish 
them,  they  turned  their  inquiries  within.  And  the  mind  is 
so  constituted  that  it  can  make  any  hypotheses  and  then 
proceed  to  build  a  system  logically  based  on  them.  Hence 
they  had  no  trouble  to  obtain  the  definitions  required. 
These  were  of  the  mind  alone. 

Then  to  defend  and  hold  these  it  was  necessary  to  do 
away  with  the  rest  of  the  universe.  So  from  that  time  on, 
mind  was  the  universe  ;  mind  and  matter  had  nothing  in 
common.  Nature  was  to  be  overlooked,  despised,  and 
shunned  as  gross,  corrupting  matter,  and  only  flights  of 
mind  were  real  and  worth  any  serious  consideration. 

This  whole  legitimate  outcome  did  not  immediately  fol- 
low the  innocent  diversions  of  Plato.  It  was  not  until 
after  Aristotle — ^whose  genius  won  him  a  place  of  so  large 
authority — had  taken  up  these  phases  of  thinking  and  put 
them  in  form  to  be  used  that  they  came  to  exert  so  exten- 
sive and  pov>'erful  an  influence.  Aristotle  was  himself  in  a 
way  a  student  of  nature  of  great  promise.  But  to  his  large 
line  of  successors,  hardly  followers,  his  mental  flights  were 
more  attractive  than  his  studies  of  bugs  and  fishes.  So  the 
world  went  into  the  occupation  of  what  has  been  styled 
*'  pure  thinking";  that  is,  thinking  not  conditioned  by  the 
presence  of  any  fact  of  the  gross  universe. 

Then  arose  one  after  another  the  so-called  great  thinkers — 
men  who  solved  all  things  by  introspection  and  contempla- 


The  Passing  of  Plato.  7 

tion.  Then  systems  of  philosophy  spread  over  Western 
Europe  like  cobwebs  over  a  lawn  of  a  summer  morning- 
The  early  writers  of  the  Christian  Church,  the  Christian 
fathers,  also  wove  a  tissue  of  theology  by  the  methods  and 
with  the  inspiration  of  Plato,  And  thus  the  warp  and 
woof  of  the  intellectual  life  of  ages  came  to  consist  of  what 
has  been  styled  the  "  lazy  philosophy  of  Plato." 

The  church,  the  state,  and  the  schools,  literature  and  art, 
were  dominated  by  the  methods  which  seek  fundamental 
principles  by  introspection,  and  on  them  build  each  its 
peculiar  structure,  by  the  conception  that  the  mind  of  man 
was  the  center  and  content  of  the  universe,  and  all  else  was 
either  gross  or  unreal.  Investigation  and  collection  of  facts 
were  not  only  unnecessary,  but  they  all  belonged  to  that 
nether  world  which  could  only  serve  the  purpose  of  inter- 
fering with  the  lofty  movement  of  pure  thought. 

Through  all  this  long  period  of  pure  thinking  no  con- 
tribution of  value  to  progress  can  be  pointed  out.  At  long 
intervals  protests  appeared  against  the  extreme  conditions 
brought  on  by  these  methods. 

These  protests  culminated  in  the  Renaissance  and  the 
Reformation.  These  movements  were  the  expression  of  the 
true  instinctive  love  of  man  for  nature  and  the  real.  They 
brought  new  life  again  into  the  world,  but  their  leaders 
could  never  shake  themselves  clear  of  the  very  methods 
whose  results  they  opposed.  It  was  with  them  the  instinct 
to  return  to  the  true  position  without  the  training  to  main- 
tain it.  Consequently  their  movements,  refreshing  as 
showers  after  a  long  drought,  produced  no  far-reaching 
radical  changes  and  but  slow  and  diversified  progress.  They 
were  rather  a  rush  to  the  enjoyment  of  nature  once  more, 
and  not  a  serious  study  of  her,  while  the  methods  of  think- 
ing remained  little  changed. 

Thus  matters  stood  until  the  beginning  of  the  present 
century;  and  with  this  immense  past  and  the  slavish  rever- 
ence for  the  past,  these  conceptions  and  methods,  like  the 
"Old  Man  of  the  Sea,"  still  hang   upon  the  neck  of  the 


8  The  Passing  of  Plato. 

present  movement.  But  as  this  lusty  giant  grows,  the  "Old 
Man's  "  days  are  numbered. 

All  through  the  darkest  of  this  unproductive  period,  real 
students  of  nature,  scattered  here  and  there,  more  or  less 
stifled  by  the  atmosphere  of  the  times,  kept  alive,  smould- 
ering and  almost  extinguished  as  they  often  were,  coals  of  the 
true  fire  which  was  to  blaze  out  in  such  a  conflagration  as 
we  are  now  witnessing,  from  which  is  to  come  a  new  and 
more  glorious  world. 

Before  the  beginning  of  the  present  century  the  number 
of  students  of  nature  was  steadily  increasing.  The  feeling 
was  growing,  and  indeed  was  sometimes  expressed  by  them, 
that  no  thinking  or  conclusion  is  warranted  except  that 
based  on  facts.  Facts  became  of  extreme  importance  ;  and 
no  end  of  labor  and  pains  was  spent  to  obtain  them.  They 
again  and  again  repaid  all  this  labor  by  yielding  the  most 
wonderful  discoveries,  familiar  to  all  acquainted  with  the 
history  of  science. 

Thus  slowly  and  surely  grew  into  tangible  shape  what  we 
know  as  the  scientific  method — a  method  which  has  been 
described  by  Huxley  as  the  "method  of  common  sense,"  a 
method  which  simply  demands  an  accurate  knowledge  of 
the  facts  before  describing  their  relations. 

Its  value  plainly  demonstrated  and  once  clearly  con- 
ceived, it  has  become  the  plain  and  simple  instrument  that 
has  made  these  magnificent  conquests  in  the  world  of  our 
material  life;  and  now  we  have  the  spectacle  of  its  vigorous 
effect  on  the  matter  and  methods  of  those  things  usually 
designated  vs  of  the  mind. 

We  have  but  to  pass  in  rapid  review  the  state  of  the 
knowledge  of  today  and  that  of  the  recent  past  to  obtain  our 
evidence. 

All  of  the  old  nature  subjects,  physical  and  biological, 
have  been  completely  revolutionized.  Within  them  whole 
groups  of  elaborate  sciences  have  been  created,  and  all  of 
these  have  progressed  with  remarkable  rapidity.  All  those 
subjects  not  classed  with  the  nature  subjects  have  also  felt 


The  Passing  of  Plato.  9 

the  influence  of  the  creative  power  of  the  scientific  method, 
for  within  the  bounds  of  the  humanities  this  breath  of  life  is 
transforming  everything  and  bringing  into  birth  the  healthy 
beginnings  of  many  sciences. 

The  immeasurable  success  attained  in  a  short  period  of 
years  in  the  study  of  nature  by  the  scientific  method,  con- 
trasted with  the  absolute  lack  of  progress  which  was  the 
result  of  other  methods,  forced  itself  on  the  attention  of 
those  really  seeking  truth  in  other  lines  of  thought.  As  a 
consequence  students  of  history,  of  social  institutions  and 
problems,  of  language,  of  mental  phenomena,  and  even  of 
ethics  and  philosophy,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  have  intro- 
duced the  scientific  method  into  their  work. 

A  comparison  of  the  state  of  each  of  these  lines  of  human 
thought  of  today  with  that  of  fifty  years  ago  shows  aston- 
ishing changes. 

To  illustrate  :  History  is  no  longer  merely  the  more  or 
less  interesting  accounts  of  the  conspicuous  persons  and 
events  of  a  nation's  life,  based  on  facts  not  accurately 
obtained,  colored  by  the  prejudices  or  literary  ambition  of 
those  describing  them  ;  often,  it  is  true,  unified  into  a  sem- 
blance of  completeness  by  constructing  the  whole  on  a 
plan — a  plan,  however,  which  is  the  result  of  an  attempt  to 
illustrate  principles  which  have  been  preconceived  by  the 
author.  Indeed,  the  history  of  the  past  is  chiefly  the 
works  of  authors. 

The  history  of  the  present  is  quite  a  different  matter. 
The  history  of  the  past  is  to  the  historical  science  of  the 
present  what  the  interesting  stories  of  dogs,  elephants,  and 
curious  plants  are  to  that  complex  of  sciences  which  has 
for  its  object  the  explanation  of  the  laws  by  which  all  liv- 
ing beings  have  come  in  their  manifold  forms  to  be  occupy- 
ing their  diverse  positions  and  maintaining  their  over- 
whelmingly complex  relations  with  one  another  and  all 
the  world  beside. 

In  like  manner,  history  at  the  present  time  is  a  vigorous 
science.     It  proposes  to  solve  a  thousand  problems  of  the* 


10  The  Passing  of  Plato. 

development  of  the  life  of  the  human  race.  Its  material  is 
of  that  broad  extent  that  it  includes  every  fact  and  every 
act  of  all  peoples  of  all  times.  It  views  the  earth  covered 
with  diversified  peoples  of  different  languages,  customs,  insti- 
tutions, occupations,  and  beliefs.  It  sees  these  as  innumer- 
able differentiations  of  original  common  antecedents.  It 
proposes  to  ascertain  as  far  as  possible  the  facts  of  the 
progress  of  this  differentiation  and  development,  and  from 
these  facts  discover  the  laws  that  have  wrought  so  many 
diverse  forms  of  community  life,  so  many  forms  of  thought 
and  activit}'. 

The  problems  are  vast.  The  material  of  the  past  too 
scant  by  far,  it  is  true,  still  the  scientific  method  of  research 
is  multiplying  the  material  immensely.  And  the  great 
respect  that  the  scientific  spirit  has  engendered  has  driven 
the  present  to  begin  to  make  most  extensive  records  of  its 
acts,  so  that  the  future  historian  will  not  lack  for  data. 
His  labors  will  even  be  greater  and  more  slow,  but  they  will 
give  real  products. 

Not  all  students  and  workers  in  history  have  fully  caught 
the  scientific  spirit  nor  have  comprehended  the  vastness  and 
grandeur  of  the  work  that  the  method  of  science  has  dem- 
onstrated possible  for  them.  History  is  still  to  them  the 
source  of  themes  for  the  production  of  literature,  instead  of 
being  a  magnificent  structure  to  whose  building  they  will 
contribute.  Thus  the  lines  between  history  and  biology  are 
disappearing,  and  history  has  become  thoroughly  a  natural 
science  with  the  most  complex  of  all  problems,  demanding 
the  most  rigid  methods.  The  scientific  spirit  has  not  changed 
the  writer  of  liistory  alone  but  has  also  affected  his  audi- 
ence. We  are  no  longer  satisfied  with  the  author's  emotions 
in  respect  to  Ca3sar's  crossing  the  Rubicon,  or  Washing- 
ton's crossing  the  Deleware.  We  wish  from  him  a  certified 
picture  of  the  scene  and  an  accurate  determination  of  its 
place  in  the  movement  of  which  it  is  a  part;  and  we  will 
furnish  our  own  emotions. 

The  social  sciences  also  have  been  greatly  affected  by  the 


The  Passing  of  Plato.  11 

example  of  the  scientific  method,  although  they  are  still 
largely  in  the  hands  of  the  theorists.  There  are  arising 
among  their  students  those  who  have  a  deep  and  earnest 
desire  to  come  face  to  face  with  the  real  facts  of  social  life 
and  their  relations  and  from  these  alone  attempt  to  formu- 
late the  laws  of  its  development.  They  are  recognizing  that 
these  problems  are  of  the  most  difficult  and  complex  nature, 
and,  above  all,  require  for  their  solution  accurate  quanti- 
tative determinations.  Theories  in  regard  to  products  and 
their  distribution,  in  regard  to  business  and  legislation,  do 
not  with  them  precede  the  knowledge  of  the  real  facts  of 
these  great  occupations.  They  will  show  how  such  facts  as 
the  invention  of  a  process  of  making  steel  has  affected  trans- 
portation, distribution,  and  business  and  other  relations 
more  than  have  all  the  works  on  the  principles  of  political 
economy  that  have  ever  been  written.  May  their  tribe 
increase  ! 

In  the  region  of  the  study  of  language  the  scientific 
method  has  given  us  within  the  space  of  a  comparatively 
few  years  the  great  and  important  science  of  philology, 
with  its  many  departments — the  first  successful  attempt  at 
a  rational  view  of  language  in  all  the  long  period  of  language 
study.  The  impetus  thus  given  to  active  and  vigorous 
research  in  a  domain  of  knowledge  that  had  become  dead 
and  profitless  in  the  extreme,  is  in  itself  sufficient  proof  of 
the  value  of  this  method. 

Time  does  not  permit  the  account  of  how  one  after 
another  the  other  fields  of  intellectual  activity  have  come, 
or  are  coming,  to  feel  the  tonic  influence  of  science. 
It  would,  however,  be  interesting  to  know  what  is  to 
become  of  philosophy.  But  as  indications  point,  the  fore- 
cast would  be  an  ungrateful  task.  Two  or  three  things 
must  happen.  She  must  give  up  that  solemn  bluff  that  the 
philosopher  knows  more  of  each  science  than  any  of  the 
specialists  in  the  sciences  know.  She  must  give  up  her  func- 
tion of  being  the  science  of  all  sciences.  The  philosopher 
who  would  attempt  to  correlate  all  the  sciences  of  today 


12  The  Passing  of  Plato. 

might  as  well  singly  and  alone  attempt  to  digest  all  the 
agricultural  products  of  America  in  a  single  year. 

II. 

Science,  its  method  and  its  products  having  furnished  the 
environment  of  our  life,  having  opened  up  to  us  vast 
fields  of  knowledge  and  thus  permeating  every  form  of 
literature,  and  having  demonstrated  the  only  successful 
method  thus  far  hit  upon  for  ascertaining  truth,  and  thus 
compelling  change  in  the  general  methods  of  thought — in 
short,  having  created  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth — 
it  was  but  a  natural  demand  that  it  should  form  a  part  of 
the  educational  system,  which  might  reasonably  be  sup- 
posed to  prepare  for  living  in  this  new  universe. 

At  least  in  England  and  America  nothing  has  been  more 
conservative  than  the  system  of  education.  The  schools 
for  higher  education  in  hardly  any  manner  reflected  the 
vital  knowledge  and  the  actual  discussions  of  the  times  in 
which  they  existed.  Their  aims  as  far  as  they  can  be  ascer- 
tained were  such  that  they  had  no  need  to  deal  with  any 
form  of  real  and  useful  knowledge.  It  was  claimed  that 
they  were  to  give  training  and  culture.  The  training  was 
mainly  of  a  few  specific  forms  of  memory  and  feats  of 
mental  legerdemain,  but  the  culture  was  undeniable,  unmis- 
takable, very  unctuous,  and  glowed  with  a  soft  light.  Its 
possessor  was  known  as  a  scholar. 

The  subjects  used  for  this  training  had  become  traditional 
and  were  for  the  most  part  conventional.  These  studies 
were  in  no  way  in  touch  with  the  active  world  outside. 
The  occupations  and  methods  of  thought  were  precisely  of 
that  nature  to  make  members  of  this  community  despise 
all  material  facts  and  shun  all  contact  with  material  objects. 

This  isolated  and  narrow  life  created  a  community  peculiar 
to  itself  and  jealous  of  its  peculiarities.  They  created  for 
themselves  an  exclusive  caste,  the  members  worshiping  one 
another  and   despising   all   the  world  beside,  and   in   turn 


The  Passing  of  Plato.  13 

mildly  despised  by  the  world  when  it  happened  to  think  of 
them. 

All  this  did  not  seem  so  out  of  place  in  England,  where 
still  the  land  is  dotted  with  Mediaeval  ruins,  and  people  are 
still  employed  to  keep  fresh  the  blood-stains  of  many  who 
were  beheaded  by  a  Mediaeval  faith.  But  in  America,  where 
poverty  forbade  the  maintaining  of  the  full  livery  of  all  this, 
the  incongruity  was  very  striking. 

The  more  intense  intellectual  life  grown  up  outside  of  the 
universities  created  a  wider  demand  for  a  preparation  to 
live  it.  Naturally  the  universities  were  sought  to  gratify 
this  demand.  But  this  old  regime  did  not  satisfy  those 
who  looked  forward  to  a  career  not  within  the  lines  of 
theology  and  philosophy.  Some  inkling  at  least  of  those 
great  conquests  in  the  realms  of  nature  was  begged  for  in  the 
short  intervals  between  Latin  prose  and  the  grinding  out  of 
Latin  verses.  Thus  science  came  in  first  as  a  sort  of  indulg- 
ence. She  occupied  the  nooks  and  corners.  She  appeared 
only  in  the  mild  form  of  lectures  on  the  most  conspicuous  and 
interesting  phenomena  of  nature.  It  was  not  imagined 
that  it  did  or  could  contribute  to  the  training  and  culture 
which  it  was  the  peculiar  function  of  the  university  to  give. 
But  these  beginnings  were  the  commencement  of  an 
aw^akening  of  a  new  university  life.  It  was  the  opening 
of  a  cleft  in  the  walls,  allowing  a  beam  of  the  light  of  day 
unclouded  by  smoke  of  incense,  not  distorted  by  stained 
glass,  to  penetrate  into  the  great  structure. 

The  mere  statement  of  the  conquests  that  had  been  made 
over  nature  carried  with  it  the  evidence  of  the  great  prog- 
ress of  the  world  outside  and  beyond  the  university.  It 
showed  that  already  knowledge  and  life  had  become  so  vast 
and  so  intense  that  the  old  routine  could  not  serve  for  it. 
With  a  few  of  the  meager  facts  of  science  first  introduced 
came  next  into  the  university  the  methods  of  science. 
Then  appeared  the  laboratories  as  a  means  of  education. 
This  made  the  connection  between  the  university  and  the 
rest  of   the  world.     In  the   laboratories  real  and  tangible 


14  The  Passing  of  Plato. 

facts  and  the  inquiring  mind  were  in  the  university  brought 
face  to  face,  and  the  true  method  of  the  solution  of  the  one 
by  the  other  demonstrated.  This  touch  of  reality  brought 
about  a  series  of  results  in  higher  education  which  are  revo- 
lutionizing and  must  continue  to  revolutionize  our  concep- 
tions of  its  aim  and  content. 

The  real  universe  is  vastly  greater  and  more  magnificent 
than  any  imagined  one.  The  innermost  recess  of  our 
nature  vibrates  to  real  contact  with  the  actual  universe.  It 
is  a  part  and  jn'oduct  of  it.  It  grew  by  the  means  of  the 
external  universe,  and  is  still  to  grow  by  that  means. 

Those  in  the  university  who  felt  the  tonic  of  a  breath 
of  a  real  atmosphere  soon  demanded  realitA^in  other  know- 
ledge than  that  of  nature.  The  student  after  seeing  and 
trying  the  careful  method  of  the  scientist,  who  patiently 
and  with  great  labor  and  with  every  guard  against  preju- 
dice gathered  a  great  number  of  facts,  and  looked  to  these 
and  these  alone  for  his  conclusions,  and  when  these  con- 
clusions thus  produced  seemed  somewhat  real,  could  no 
longer  with  patience  listen  to  an  historical  discourse  which 
was  the  work  of  imagination,  an  announcement  of  the 
most  profound  and  far-reaching  conclusions  in  economic 
science  which  had  their  source  only  in  principles  assumed 
in  the  beginning  by  the  author,  or  a  course  in  the  science  of 
the  mind  which  did  not  deal  with  ascertained  real  facts  of 
the  mind;  and  least  of  all  could  he  listen  with  patience  to 
the  expounding  of  a  system  of  philosophy  which  assumed 
to  comprehend  all  sciences  and  correlate  them  without  a 
knowledge  of  a  single  one  of  them. 

The  student  from  the  laboratory  who  has  felt  its  meaning 
and  caught  its  spirit  knows  that  all  these  things  are  thin 
air  thrown  into  viltrations,  and  that  the  same  air  might  as 
well  have  vibrated  in  any  other  combination.  Consequently 
he  demands  the  same  sort  of  knowledge  and  the  same  cer- 
tainty in  it  in  other  lines  of  study.  He  who  has  felt  the 
keen  pleasure  and  satisfaction  of  a  quantitative  determina- 
tion of  a  piece  of  knowledge  can  not  but  look  with  some- 


The  Passing  of  Plato.  15 

thing  of  contempt  on  mere  opinion  and  effusive  statement. 
It  is  these  demands  that  have  shaken  up  many  of  the 
■old  subjects  and  the  old  methods. 

Another  extremely  important  effect  has  been  the  intro- 
duction and  strengthening  of  other  lines  of  study  not  gen- 
erally classed  as  scientific  which  were  practically  outside 
the  system  of  education;  that  is,  the  group  known  as  the 
humanities,  subjects  which  are  often  wrongly  assumed  as 
opposed  to  the  sciences. 

While  the  teaching  of  Plato  that  separated  mind  from 
matter  still  influences  largely  the  thought  of  our  time,  yet 
the  time  is  fast  approaching  when  all  lines  of  separation 
will  disappear,  and  man  in  all  his  phases  will  be  considered 
and  treated  as  a  part  of  nature.  There  is  now  every  day 
wider  extension  of  the  demand  of  real  knowledge  in  regard 
to  all  things  pertaining  to  man.  This  is  the  direct  result  of 
this  taste  for  reality  that  the  scientific  spirit  has  begotten. 
In  consequence  there  are  now  in  the  universities  side  by  side 
with  the  sciences  the  great  studies,  history,  economics,  liter- 
ature, and  art.  These  with  the  sciences  were  almost 
unknown  in  the  higher  schools  in  their  true  sense  fifty  years 
ago  in  this  country  and  in  England. 

Science  has  also  discovered,  dignified,  and  given  a  deeper 
meaning  to  still  other  phases  of  human  activity.  The 
mechanical  and  industrial  arts  have  felt  in  the  most  won- 
derful manner  its  creative  influence,  and  to  this  they  owe 
the  positions  they  are  coming  to  take  among  the  results  of 
productive  thinking.  The  prejudice  bred  by  the  long  use  of 
a  narrow  definition  of  culture  kept  these  subjects  out  of  the 
educational  courses,  but  it  is  beginning  to  be  realized  that 
it  may  be  as  much  worth  while  to  understand  the  making 
of  the  complex  and  finished  products  of  the  present  age  as 
it  is  to  contemplate  the  rude  implements  of  a  past  one  ;  that 
it  may  contribute  as  much  to  one's  culture  to  study  a  steam 
engine  or  an  electric  light  plant  as  to  contemplate  a 
corroded  curling  iron,  or  a  broken  beer  mug  from  the  ruins 
of  Troy. 


16  The  Fassiwj  of  Plato. 

Today  still,  in  the  courses  in  the  elementary  and  second- 
ary schools,  the  most  conservative  and  Plato-ridden  institu- 
tions that  remain  to  us,  there  is  given  a  meager  place  to 
the  knowledge  of  man  and  of  nature  ;  that  is,  the  sciences, 
history,  literature,  and  art.  But  the  time  is  at  hand  when 
that  self-sufficient  philosophy  which  so  largely  dominates 
the  thought  in  our  lower  schools  must  succumb  to  the  move- 
ments of  the  times.  Then  the  children  and  youth,  through 
the  very  periods  of  growth  and  development,  when  they  can 
best  catch  the  spirit  and  form  the  habits  of  the  advanced 
age  in  which  they  live,  instead  of  being  systematically 
hedged  in  from  all  contact  with  it,  will  be  intelligently 
induced  into  its  spirit,  made  familiar  with  its  product,  and 
drilled  in  its  methods.  When  they  leave  the  schools  they 
will  be  immediately  at  home  in  the  world  about  them,  and 
can  successfully  face  it. 

Theologians,  Hegelians,  and  Platonists  of  whatever  twist 
have  cause  to  fear  the  scientific  method;  but  least  of  all 
should  the  student  of  the  humanities  make  faces  at  the 
scientist,  and  become  emotional,  not  to  say  hysterical,  at  the 
scientific  method,  as  was  recently  the  case  with  an  earnest 
student  of  history.  There  is,  of  course,  an  opportunity 
sometimes  for  the  historian  to  be  moved  with  the  spirit  of 
the  antiquarian,  and  as  he  comes  upon  some  of  the  admir- 
able figures  that  have  crossed  the  stage  in  the  past,  to  be- 
moan the  times  that  no  longer  produce  in  exact  detail 
these  fine  old  characters. 

The  dignified  scholar,  the  fine  old  gentleman  glowing  with 
the  culture  of  the  old  school,  awakens  our  enthusiastic 
admiration,  and  even  love,  as  we  unearth  him  from  the 
times  in  which  he  lived  ;  still  we  need  not  mourn  that  no 
one  now  who  is  strong  enough  to  become  such  a  one  is  will- 
ing to  do  so,  any  more  than  he  would  desire  to  wear  a  queue, 
a  three-cornered  hat  and  shoe  buckles,  and  hunt  ducks  with  a 
blunderbuss.  Then  we  may  console  ourselves  with  the  rec- 
ollection of  the  many  other  things  which  of   necessity  were 


The  Passing  of  Plato.  17 

contemporaneous  with  this  fine  old  gentleman,  and  happily 
have  passed  away  with  him. 

How  inane  in  any  case  are  these  wails  against  science  and 
the  scientific  method  and  the  changes  they  are  working  out. 
The  scientific  method  is  so  constructed  that  it  can  overturn 
nothing  but  error,  and  if  one's  investments  do  not  lie  in 
that  direction  why  worry  any  longer  about  it  ? 

The  plea  that  science  unfits  one  for  the  enjoyment  of  that 
side  of  nature  and  life  which  it  is  the  office  of  art  and  liter- 
ature to  express  is  an  equally  shallow  one.  How  can  know- 
ing the  truth  more  deeply  cause  us  to  see  less  of  beauty, 
or  to  have  less  of  feeling  in  all  that  appeals  to  us  ? 

While  we  may  be  wrapt  in  admiration  at  the  grandeur 
of  a  mountain,  and  watch  with  awe  the  effect  of  changing 
tint  and  color  of  mountain,  sky,  and  darkening  valley,  as 
the  painting  of  a  setting  sun  carries  them  all  through  a  most 
wonderful  program,  our  emotions  will  be  none  the  less,  nor 
expansion  of  soul  less  great,  if  we  also  see  that  mountain 
a  monument  erected  as  the  resultant  of  great  forces  that 
have  through  ages  been  at  work  on  its  structure  and  form. 
Science  does  not  prevent  our  seeing  the  beauty  of  the  scene, 
but  lends  vastly  to  the  effect  by  making  it,  instead  of  a 
momentary  display  of  color  with  no  more  meaning  than  we 
can  conjure  up,  a  veritable  height  from  which  we  get  a 
glimpse  of  the  real  living  universe  greater  than  any  imag- 
ined one.  So  with  every  bird,  flower,  or  gem,  and  every 
phenomenon  of  nature.  Science  does  not  do  away  with 
beauty  of  form  or  color  or  grace  of  motion,  but  gives  to  all 
these  a  deeper  meaning.  It  may  be  true  that  scientists  do 
not  usually  rave  about  these  things,  and  do  not  particularly 
enjoy  the  ravings  of  others.  They  have  passed  the  raving 
period,  and  have  reached  that  of  deep  self-sacrificing  devo- 
tion. All  such  talk  as  abusing  Newton  for  the  "  analysis  of 
the  rainbow,"  or  shuddering  because  "  science  teaches  the 
youth  to  analyze  his  mother's  tears,"  and  the  like,  are  either 
hysterical  or  sensational. 

The  same  quantitative  study  and  rigid  application  of  the 

4 


18  The  Passing  of  Plato. 

method  of  science  must  give  a  deeper  meaning  to  the  facts 
within  the  realm  of  the  study  of  man;  nor  can  it  lessen 
feeling  in  regard  to  him.  It  will  surely  often  change  our 
point  of  view  and  change  our  conceptions  of  the  value  of 
things.  The  scientific  method  is  not  going  to  deprive  us 
of  the  power  of  crying,  but  will  clear  up  things  so  that  we 
can  cry  over  the  right  things — in  other  words,  cry  more 
intelligently. 

The  scientific  method  has  heen  correctly  described  as 
the  method  of  "  common  sense."  And  to  say,  as  was  recently 
said  in  a  prominent  address,  "beware  of  the  scientific 
method"  in  studies  of  history,  is  to  decry  the  extension  of 
common  sense  into  these  regions. 

The  new  evils  of  which  we  are  hearing  so  much  as  the 
result  of  science  arise  rather  from  those  who  have  taken  up 
the  name  and  somewhat  of  the  language  of  science,  and  not 
its  real  method  and  spirit.  In  all  times  there  have  been 
those  who,  seeking  to  gain  somewhat  of  prominence  and 
authority  for  what  they  have  to  say  or  do,  have  posed  as 
members  of  a  strong  or  popular  party.  Science  has  become 
popular  and  much  respected,  consequently  there  have  come 
to  attempt  to  enroll  with  her  votaries  great  motley  crowds 
of  those  who  write  and  speak,  who  catch  up  some  of  her 
language,  take  on  something  of  her  air,  and  with  them  pro- 
mulgate as  her  teachings  all  the  various  vagaries  that  the 
human  mind  is  heir  to.  There  result  in  this  time  of  change 
and  lack  of  scientific  education  much  confusion  and  dis- 
trust of  science. 

This  is  increased  by  still  another  group  of  quite  a  differ- 
ent stamp.  They  are  honest  and  earnest  and  in  their  work 
wish  to  use,  indeed  think  they  are  using,  the  scientific 
method  ;  but  unfortunately  for  all  concerned  they  have  no 
true  conception  of  it,  nor  havethey  ever  rationally  attempted 
to  gain  such  a  conception.  These  people  would  not  think 
of  atten)))ting  to  calculate  an  eclipse  or  build  a  steam-engine 
without  the  years  of  preparation  for  such  work  ;  but  they  do 
not  hesitate  to  attempt  far  more  difficult  problems,  which  only 


The  Passing  of  Plato.  19 

the  scientific  method    will  solve,  without  any  preparation 
for  the  work. 

But  evils  and  confusion  arising  from  these  causes  will 
right  themselves  in  time,  for  the  tests  are  so  clear  that 
those  who  know  how  to  employ  them  may  with  reasonable 
certainty  distinguish  the  true  method  from  its  imitation, 
and  the  number  of  such  good  judges  is  rapidly  increasing. 
The  warning  then  should  be,  not  to  beware  of  the  scientific 
method,  but  to  beware  of  attempting  to  proceed  in  any 
direction  without  its  being  most  rigorously  applied.  And 
while  it  is  true  that  the  scientific  method  applied  to  the 
study  of  chemistry  and  physics  "  has  not  made  history  a 
whit  easier  to  understand,"  the  application  of  the  scientific 
method  to  history  has  already  begun  to  unravel  some  of  its 
problems,  and  it  seems  sure  nothing  else  will  accomplish 
this.  While  it  is  too  much  to  expect  that  the  habits  of 
thought  that  have  dominated  for  two  centuries  will  pass 
promptly  and  without  many  sorrows,  yet  they  are  passing 
as  the  unprofitable  must  pass.  The  scientific  method  does 
not  promise  panaceas,  but  it  insures  a  healthy  life  by  show- 
ing that  they  do  not  exist.  As  we  see  things  now  the  scien- 
tific method  can  do  all  that  can  be  done,  and  that  seems  to 
be  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter. 


III. 

While  viewing  with  great  pleasure  the  service  that  science 
has  done  higher  education,  we  can  not  escape  the  fact  that 
the  scientific  spirit  has  suffered  somewhat  by  its  contact 
with  the  university.  When  science  was  conquering  the 
world,  it  was  living  its  heroic  age.  Its  followers  were  true 
heroes.  Devotion,  love,  self-sacrifice,  and  courage,  without 
hope  of  any  reward  from  the  world  outside,  constituted 
their  life.  Their  motives  were  of  the  purest  and  loftiest. 
With  the  success  of  science  there  have  come  other  condi- 
tions, and  now  there  are  also  other  motives  for  the  pur- 
suit of   science.     In    the   universities    the   science  subjects 


20  The  Passing  of  Plato. 

have  been  compelled  more  or  less  to  conform  to  the  routine 
already  existing  in  them.  The  subjects  in  the  universities 
form  parts  of  formal  courses,  which  are  of  more  or  less  arti- 
ficial groups.  These  lead  to  degrees  and  other  distinctions. 
Thus  motives  are  created  for  the  study  of  science  which  are 
entirely  foreign  to  the  spirit  and  content  of  any  science. 
Indeed,  the  rivalry  of  schools  has  become  such  that  many 
forms  of  bait  have  been  resorted  to  in  order  to  lure  people 
on  to  further  study  in  the  university  courses,  such  as  prizes, 
degrees,  scholarships,  fellowships,  and  distinctions  of  vari- 
ous kinds.  Thus  there  come  to  be  mingled  together  with  those 
who  study  science  for  its  own  sake  many  who  pursue  it  for 
some  ulterior  motive.  This  has  brought  out  a  host  of 
unscrupulous  little  intellects  who  in  the  various  depart- 
ments of  science  are  boring  in  every  conceivable  direction 
and  are  describing  with  the  most  tiresome  details  their 
minutest  chips,  and  often  with  it  wasting  good  money  in 
expensive  lithographs.  Their  products  are  becoming  so 
numerous  and  intermingled  with  real  works  that  it  requires 
great  labor  to  sift  them  out.  But  this  is  not  the  greatest 
harm.  The  most  serious  evil  is  the  robbing  of  the  true  spirit 
of  science  of  the  power  it  possesses  when  it  alone  is  the 
motive. 

What  will  be  the  final  outcome?  Will  science,  which 
has  already  done  so  much  to  make  rational  the  university 
courses,  which  has  pierced  so  many  bubbles  and  corroded 
60  many  baubles,  be  able  finally  to  make  all  conventional 
trivialities  of  the  university  disappear  ?  Already  a  large 
number  of  those  who  enter  the  universities  do  so  for  the 
preparation  for  work  they  have  in  mind.  To  such  the 
artificial  stimuli  count  for  nothing.  May  we  not  hope  for 
the  time  when  it  will  be  seen  that  the  university  does  a 
great  harm  in  proposing  either  directly  or  indirectly  any 
other  motive  than  those  its  subjects  carry  with  them  ? 
Should  the  university  encourage  in  its  students  such  an 
absurd  class  of  questions  as  "  How  much  chemistry  or  his- 


TJie  Passing  of  Plato.  21 

tory  shall  I  take  to  get  one  degree,  and  how  much  add  to 
this  to  get  another?" 

And  then  when  one  has  increas.ed  in  knowledge  or  grown 
in  spirit  why  should  he  wish  a  certificate  to  that  effect  or 
receive  a  distinguishing  mark  ?  Most  curious  of  all  is  the 
millinery  method  of  designating  stages  of  intellectual  de- 
velopment. For  example,  a  certain  development  of  soul, 
shown  by  a  hood  with  a  yellow  border;  cap  carrying  a  rec- 
tangular figure  on  top  probably  indicates  the  mind  having 
reached  two  dimensions;  a  certain  refinement  of  spirit,  indi- 
cated by  sleeves  of  gown  neatly  edged  with  gold  braid;  cer- 
tain very  lofty  aspirations  realized,  collar  turned  up,  gown 
long,  cut  bias  and  gored  with  black  darts  of  velvet;  a  com- 
bination of  all  those  grandmotherly  qualities  that  allows 
one  to  preside  over  this  gentle  throng,  and  thus  be  a  true 
alma  maler,  gown  very  full  with  plenty  of  white  lace.  Now 
it  is  thought  vulgar  for  one  to  display  his  material  wealth, 
or  for  an  Indian  to  boast  of  being  a  big  one.  Can  one  with 
any  greater  propriety  assume  a  halo  because  he  has  learned 
a  certain  group  of  things  that  any  one  can  learn? 

,The  systems  of  education  which  we  have,  both  elementary 
and  higher,  are  in  great  part  an  inheritance  from  times 
long  preceding  our  own.  Whether  they  were  suited  lo 
those  times  and  what  were  the  reasons  for  their  forms  are  of 
little  consequence  to  us  now  as  far  as  the  organization  of 
a  system  for  our  own  times  is  concerned.  But  as  a  matter 
of  fact  it  is  made  of  great  consequence  from  the  unreason- 
ing fear  and  distaste  to  changing  what  has  once  been  in 
such  matters.  We  have  here  too  much  reverence  for  the 
past,  simply  from  the  halo  that  the  past  often  gives  things, 
incongruous  as  they  may  have  been  when  they  existed. 

Indeed,  the  fact  that  any  system  belonged  to  the  past, 
should  in  itself  lead  us  to  suspect  it,  as  it  was  adapted  to 
times  that,  from  the  nature  of  things,  could  not  be  like 
our  own.  From  their  hallowed  associations,  to  attempt  to 
use  the  wooden  plough  that  the  Romans  used,  to  plough  the 
great  ranches  of  California  would  not  only  be  an  example 


298967 


22  The  Passhig  of  Plato. 

of  maudlin  sentimentality,  but  would  reduce  California  to 
the  condition  in  which  it  was  when  it  was  formerly  under 
control  of  a  Latin  civilization.  The  wooden  plough  and 
its  contemporary  ideas  may  properly  find  a  place  in  the 
museum  of  a  university,  but  should  not  form  any  part  of 
its  working  organization. 

Nor  should  the  conception  that  the  educational  system 
is  the  result  of  an  evolution  be  made  the  excuse  for  retain- 
ing useless  parts  that  have  come  to  us  from  the  past  as  sort 
of  rudimentary  organs  to  remind  us  of  its  origin.  The 
laws  of  organic  growth  and  heredity  do  not  hold  here. 
But  as  the  builder  of  a  steamship  is  free  to  ignore  all  the 
steps  in  the  evolution  of  the  parts  of  a  modern  vessel,  and 
choose  the  best  material  and  latest  devices  that  mechanical 
engineering  has  to  offer,  so  in  our  educational  system  there 
is  nothing  in  its  nature  to  prevent  our  making  it  what  we 
please. 

When  we  come  to  consider  the  vastness  of  well-ordered 
real  knowledge  at  the  present  time,  the  intensity  of  intel- 
lectual activity,  the  great  number  of  important  problems 
thrust  upon  us,  the  crowds  of  errors  as  well  as  the  multi- 
tudes of  truths  that  crowd  upon  our  judgment,  and  the 
fierce  competition  on  every  hand,  requiring  the  best  equip- 
ment in  modern  knowledge  and  method,  there  is  the  most 
urgent  reason  that  our  educational  system  be  cleared  of 
everything  that  interferes  with  its  cleanest  action. 

The  elementary  system  needs  no  longer  the  endless 
patching  up  of  its  motley  mixture,  the  strange  result  of 
necessity,  en)piricisni,  and  accident.  It  has  had  enough  of 
the  fanciful  apologies  of  the  philosophers  for  its  existence, 
and  of  mystic  pictures  of  its  fancied  rebiiions  to  an 
imagined  soul,  it  needs  to  be  completely  reorganized  from 
the  foundation  and  |)Ut  in  relation  to  the  life  of  today. 

As  for  our  higher  schools,  t])e  universities,  they  have 
become  freer  to  react  to  the  times.  They  are  every  year 
becoming  less  under  the  influence  of  the  inane  and  inactive 
scholasticism  whicli  made  the  most  narrow  of  definitions  of 


The  Passing  of  Plato.  23 

culture  and  set  her  up  as  a  goddess  and  established  about 
her  a  puerile  ritual  and  a  bigoted  hierarchy.  First  in 
Germany  and  then  in  America  the  university  broke  away, 
or  is  breaking  away  from  these  bonds. 

The  university  is  no  longer  to  be  simply  the  conservator 
of  the  past.  It  should  be  the  leader  and  stimulus  of  the 
present  and  the  prophet  of  the  future.  Every  phase  of 
intellectual  activity  should  have  its  place  in  the  university, 
where  will  be  gathered  its  literature,  where  may  be  collected 
its  facts,  and  where  will  be  grouped  masters  in  its  science 
who  stand  ready  to  impart  its  spirit  and  drill  in  its 
methods.  Throughout  the  whole  will  prevail  thoroughly 
the  scientific  spirit  and  method,  and  that  complete  freedom 
in  choice  of  subjects  and  career  absolutely  necessary  to 
strongest  development. 


# 


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